


Strange Spirits

by SaraJaye



Series: Ever After 'Verse [15]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Fluff and Feels, Halloween, Haunted Houses, M/M, Parenthood, Spooky Coincidences, Surprise Ending, twist ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2020-11-26 12:08:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20929973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaraJaye/pseuds/SaraJaye
Summary: While their twins explore a haunted house at a Halloween fair, Keith and Shiro get a bit of a spook themselves.





	Strange Spirits

**Author's Note:**

> I REALLY don't wanna spoil the ending, but this is where I reassure you the non-tagged stuff isn't anything that would warrant tagging. Promise.

Stran"Wowwww! This is the coolest haunted house in the world!" Danny cheered, grabbing Lisa's arm and practically dragging her on ahead of the rest of them. Keith sighed, sprinting ahead and grabbing Danny by the shoulder. The haunted houses at Halloween fairs were usually perfectly safe for kids to run around and explore, but most people who designed them had never met his youngest son.

"Not so fast. Before you kids go off on your own, we need to lay down some ground rules," he said. Danny groaned.

"Come on, we went here last year, Lisa and I are a whole year older now! We're the same age as the South Park kids were when that show started, and the same as Lisa Simpson, and they go on adventures all the time!" he fussed.

"That's TV, though," Keith reminded him. "This is real life, _and_ this is your first time going through the haunted house without your big brother and sister." This year, Sven had gone to a Halloween party with Julie, and Athena was watching scary movies with her group of friends. The Shirogane family had gone pumpkin picking as their big family activity instead.

"But we _can_ go off and play by ourselves, right?" Lisa asked, putting her hands on her hips and giving them a stern look only a precocious eight-year-old could. Keith glanced at his husband; they'd agreed the kids were old enough, but again, Danny was Danny. He didn't _mean_ to cause trouble, he was just too curious for his own good. Things happened.

"Guys, we said you could explore the place alone, and we meant it," Shiro said. "But you _have_ to give us your biggest, best promise you'll behave yourselves."

"We will! We even pinky-swear!" Danny said. Shiro chuckled, letting his kids each link with his robotic pinky finger. Keith followed with his own pinkies, made sure each of them had their phone charged, and let them go before Danny exploded from impatience. Once the twins were running off hand in hand, he sighed, leaning against Shiro.

"Didn't we swear we'd be cool parents who didn't overprotect their kids?" Shiro snorted, pulling him close and kissing the top of his head.

"We made no such promise."

"Well, I still feel bad. Every time I make Danny promise he'll behave I think about how-" He shook his head. "Right, right, it's not the same, different situations. Sorry, Shiro, being a parent..." He sighed. "I thought I'd be over this by now, all the unsure emotional stuff. I mean, we've had these kids for years."

"Doesn't matter," Shiro said, hugging him closer. "Being a parent is always full of emotional moments when you realize your kids are growing up. Remember how much Lance cried when Alor learned to ride his bike without training wheels, and Emmeline revived her first potted plant?" Keith smiled, burying his face against his husband's shoulder.

"Yeah, I know." He laughed softly. "Okay, enough of this emotional serious stuff, though, we came here to have fun! While the kids are off playing Scooby-Doo Ripoff number five-hundred eight, maybe you and I could make like Fred and Daphne," he suggested. Shiro snickered, ruffling the back of his hair.

"Seriously, Keith?"

"I know, that was pretty lame. Maybe I should've made a reference to teenagers dying in scary movies," Keith said. "Either way, wanna go find a corner to fool around in? Or...look at the historical stuff our kids aren't gonna have the patience for?"

"Why not both?" Shiro bowed his head and brought their lips together.

Years ago, the town where they held the Halloween fair was a typical McMansion plantation. It was one of the first places the Galra struck during the war, and after it was all over the Olkari had pretty much taken over, turning it into a communication hub surrounded by forests. The one mansion they'd saved, they'd turned into the haunted house Keith and Shiro were exploring at this moment.

Luckily, the place _did_ actually have a decent amount of history thanks to the land itself. Keith had never been a fan of history in school, but once he didn't have a boring teacher shoving it in his face demanding he memorize a million dates, it was kind of cool.

Especially when Shiro stumbled on a photo of two men who looked remarkably similar to them. When Keith leaned closer to take a better look he suddenly felt a chill throughout his body. For a split second, the taller one's eyes flashed gray rather than black, and he saw a scar on the shorter one's nose.

And when he looked at Shiro, he saw jet-black hair above his navy-blue collar.

"Keith?" Keith blinked. Silver hair, and in the photo, black eyes and not a single visible scar.

"That was weird." He leaned against Shiro again. "Shiro, remember that reality Slav showed us? That one where Allura was blonde and Lotor was ten times creepier and Coran was a stuffy old stick in the mud? And Pidge was a boy?" His husband nodded, setting the picture down.

"I do, but this picture's just a coincidence. It's gotta be," he said. "There's no reason for it to be in our reality when logically, the Keith of that world would never let it go."

"Unless Lotor made a little mistake when he put the realities back," Keith snickered, the chill feeling instantly gone. Shiro smiled, patting his shoulder.

"Probably not, but it's better than the alternative," he said. "Let's check out one of the other rooms."

The next one yielded nothing connecting this house to that photo. Just as Keith expected, and within moments he'd forgotten all about it. But every now and then he'd catch Shiro staring ahead, lost in thought, and hoped this wasn't going to bug his husband all night.

Luckily, they finally found a room that distracted them from any thoughts of parenting, kids, or eerie photos from other realities. It was pure 70s, with shag carpet and brightly-colored pillows and _Have A Nice Day_. Even posters of Suzanne Somers and Andy Gibb.

"Did we just walk into Greg Brady's bachelor pad?" Keith quipped. Shiro pulled him down onto the nearby couch, into his lap.

"He's not using it right now, baby. Groovy, eh?"

"I'm feeling so-" Keith stopped himself. As funny as Austin Powers was, there was nothing cool or sexy about the word "shagadellic". Even in the ironic sense. "Frisky?" There, that was better. Shiro winked, bumping their noses together.

"You could've said the other thing and I'd still be in the mood." He checked the clock. No matter what time period the house chose to be, the clocks were always accurate. "I'd say we've got another half hour before the kids get bored, and if we straighten this up afterwards..."

"You realize all we can do is make out a lot, right?"

"That's fine with me."

They got to go at it for less than fifteen minutes before the door burst open, though, and Lisa was yelling something about a _real_ ghost.

"A bunch of stuff started moving around and we didn't touch it!" Danny added as Keith reluctantly pulled apart from his husband. "And it wasn't using wires, either, Lisa looked for them." Keith got up and hurriedly straightened his jacket and shirt, while Shiro put a hand on each of the twins' shoulders.

"Which room was it in?" he asked.

"The one with that picture of the two guys and one looked like Daddy," Lisa said, and that chill came over Keith again.

"Can you show us?" he asked, taking Lisa's hand while Danny clung onto Shiro's human arm. The twins practically dragged them down the hall, down the stairs, back towards that room. When Shiro opened the door with his human hand, at least three different objects were floating midair. A second later, a fragile-looking vase floated back down to the dresser, landing with a soft clink. Two pillows fell back onto the bed, as if suddenly remembering they weren't supposed to float without their wires.

A few Halloweens ago, the mice had reportedly started moving things across dressers and the floor as a joke. Kosmo liked to randomly teleport things around the house, too. But none of them knew any invisibility tricks, and Keith had a sixth sense for when Kosmo was playing in places he shouldn't be. He didn't have that sense right now.

He clutched Shiro's human arm, Lisa and Danny huddling against them. Watching for any other strange activity.

"You're sure you didn't see any wires?" he finally asked. Lisa nodded.

"See, the wires are visible in the dark. Dad, turn off the light for a sec." Shiro's mecha hand let go of hers and clicked off the light switch. "Look. No wires or anything. You guys, I think we found a real ghost!"

"Cool!" Danny grinned as Shiro turned the light back on. "Sven and Athena are gonna be sorry they didn't come with us, they missed a ghost!" Keith shivered. Even after his experiences on the astral plane with Shiro's consciousness and in the collective consciousness with the spirits of King Alfor and the other original Paladins, he still wasn't sure he believed in ghosts. At least on Earth.

But he'd seen those things move without a single wire. And that photo, the brief second where he could swear it _was_ his and Shiro's alternate counterparts.

Shiro's human arm pulled him closer, and they exchanged a long glance.

"I think we all could use some fresh air," he finally said, then smiled at Danny and Lisa. "I bet you two could use a snack after all that exploring, too." The twins' eyes lit up.

"Candy apple?" Lisa asked. "I promise I won't try to bite it!"

"I wanna get one of those ears of corn that's made out of candy corn!" Danny said. Danny was one of the few people Keith knew and would ever know who didn't just eat candy corn because of traditions, he actually loved the stuff. And frankly, Keith wasn't surprised someone had come up with "candy corn corn."

"Sure, why not? But let's get some actual food, too, so you don't end up in a sugar coma," Shiro said. The kids cheered, and Keith and Shiro led them out of the house, towards the food stalls. The smell of tacos, sausages, burgers, and sweets soon brought his mind far away from any weird goings-on in that house.

In the end, it didn't really matter what it was. Maybe the people running the house just found a new way to make things float without wires. Or maybe they were just a little _too_ into the Halloween spirit tonight.

Still, Keith thought as they sat down with their treats, they'd have an interesting story to tell Sven and Athena later tonight.

_There it is._

A transluscent white apparition, vaguely human-shaped with faintly glowing golden eyes, made himself visible once he was sure the room was empty. That damned picture, the only mistake in his otherwise flawless reconstruction of the realities. One would think it was obvious where _that_ would go, but it had been lost in the shuffle.

_That man better be grateful to me for this. I could have just as easily let it go to please the other me, but after the things **he** did..._ The apparition growled in disgust. _The realities are far better off without any memory of that one._

The photo was back where it belonged now, in the hands of Akira Kogane. The young man had handled his frustration and sorrow at losing it surprisingly well, just like he'd soldiered on through the loss of that world's Takashi Shirogane himself.

_But I didn't do it for him. I did it because I can't accept a flaw in the best thing I've ever done for somebody else._

The apparition faded away, back into the ether.

Across several realities, Akira Kogane breathed a sigh of relief as he opened his nighttable drawer and discovered what he'd spent the last few weeks searching for. For a split second, he saw his eyes glow purple, and one of his lover's arms replaced with a metal appendage.

_The other me, and the other Takashi. They're not us, but as long as they have their happiness, I can at least be glad we made it in another reality. And...I'll always have my memories._

He smiled wistfully, dusting the photo's frame tenderly before setting it on his dresser.


End file.
